


Sketches

by kate_the_reader



Category: Inception (2010), RocknRolla (2008), Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: 100-word, Drabble, Fictober, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-08 13:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12255759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader
Summary: Lovers' observations ...





	1. Swift

**Author's Note:**

> Following a set of Inktober art prompts, I will write and post one 100-word drabble per day.
> 
> Mostly Arthur/Eames, some with my other pairings (Godfrey/James Delaney and Handsome Bob/Dave) as the spirit moves me.  
> I'll be posting on tumblr as well

As he watches Arthur go about his business, Eames is put in mind of a bird: a swift. 

Quick and sharp, snatching food on the wing as Arthur snatches crumbs of information.

Neat and economical as Arthur is, his clothes pressed, his sleeves rolled precisely to his elbows. 

And so graceful! Eames could watch swifts swooping for hours. Eames can watch Arthur, working, working out (he pauses on the weights bench and looks at Arthur on the treadmill, loping easily) and in their bed, astride Eames, his head thrown back, the muscles in his long thighs working as they fuck.


	2. Divided

The advantage of many layers of clothing, Eames has always thought, is that it must be removed piece by piece. All in a breathless rush or achingly slowly, depending on mood or circumstance. 

The jacket is usually off as they walk through the door, but the rest takes time — the waistcoat unbuttoned, the tie carefully unknotted, the belt unbuckled and slipped from its loops, the trousers unzipped, the shoelaces untied (Arthur is very particular: all knots must be untied, Eames!). 

Finally, Arthur is left in just his shirt, the two fronts divided. A frame for a sliver of torso. Delightful! 


	3. Poison

“What’s your poison, darling?”

Arthur could never decide if Eames was teasing -- taking the piss, he’d call it -- or serious.

“What’s my poison?”

“What are you drinking? Let me buy you another?”

“Oh. Sorry. Scotch.”

Eames had raised an amused eyebrow and slipped onto the stool next to him at the bar.

The single malt he’d ordered had lit a warm fire in Arthur’s belly. But not as warm as the fire Eames’ smile had kindled in Arthur’s chest. Not as warm as the fire his big hand had stoked as it lay on possessively Arthur’s thigh. At long last.


	4. Underwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is Taboo, James Delaney/Godfrey

It is peaceful underwater.

He falls, weightless, and they fall with him, Salish and Zilpha, their skirts ballooning, their hair floating free. Quiet, so quiet. His mind is still. 

He floats down, down, down and the pair of them, both weighed down and buoyed up by their gowns, float past him.

But they are dead and he is not -- his dreaming mind knows this. He looks up and sees, floating down to join him, Godfrey, his skirts ballooning, his hair floating free. Godfrey’s eyes are open. He is not dead.

He stretches out a living hand, and James grasps it.


	5. Long

Arthur likes his hair a little longer, he just doesn't allow himself to grow it when he’s working. The dimples are bad enough, but the dimples and the curls together … no one would ever take him seriously.

And that’s why Eames loves it when he lets his hair get long. It’s Arthur on holiday, relaxed and easy. It’s Arthur lying longer in bed in the mornings, Arthur napping on the sofa, his head in Eames’ lap, Eames’ hand in his hair, tugging through the waves. Pulling it a little bit as he tilts Arthur’s head back for a long kiss.


	6. Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sword ... it had to be James Delaney.

He chooses his weapon for his adversary.

Sword: parry, thrust, drive him back, master him, force him to his knees, looking up, his throat bared, submissive.

Knife: intimate, murmuring in his ear, blood flowing over his hand.

Pistol: certain, quick, brutal, but distant. Some do not deserve finesse and intimacy.

Hand: reflexive, shocking — both to the one who delivers it and the one who receives the blow.

Words: the most vicious weapon of all, the most intimate. “Half a man.” The weapon he most regrets using.

The weapons of another.

Hand: soothing, gentle.

Words: harsh … and soft.

Mastering him utterly.


	7. Shy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shy ... my head canon Handsome Bob may seem a bit shy ...

“You know at school, if you weren’t snogging a girl, what do you think the other lads thought?” 

They’re watching telly, and the film tugs Bob’s mind backwards.

“Well, I was,” says Dave. “Not snogging her on the front steps, but, you know, taking her out and that. And then I married her.”

“Yeah, of course. I never snogged a girl … I never snogged anyone. In public.” He grins, glances at Dave. “People thought I was shy.” Dave laughs, and bumps his knee.

“I wasn’t all _that_ shy,” Bob says, and he climbs into Dave’s lap and snogs him, thoroughly.


	8. Crooked

Of course Arthur noticed his mouth, the first time he met Eames. How could you not?

Of course he imagined kissing his mouth, when he had got to know Eames better. How could he not?

But it wasn't till he had kissed his mouth, that he realised what Eames managed to keep hidden, most of the time. His crooked teeth. His perfect, imperfect, unAmerican, unfussy, gloriously wonky teeth.

Damn, Eames had no idea what a glimpse of his teeth did to Arthur. It became his mission to made Eames laugh, just so he could see them. How could he not?


	9. Screech

The hotel is barely deserving of the name, but they’re exhausted and even Arthur doesn't do more than raise an eyebrow.

“Take the first shower,” Eames offers, magnanimous.

He’s stretched out on the lumpy bed when he hears it.

An unearthly shriek. A screech, even. From the bathroom.

He races in to find Arthur, bollock naked, aiming his shaving foam at the corner of the shower. “Get my gun!” he hisses, “so I can kill the fucker!”

The fucker is a moderate-sized spider, and Eames doesn't stop laughing all evening. Arthur doesn't see the funny side till the next day.


	10. Gigantic

“So, Arthur, how big was the spider?” Yusuf is struggling to keep his laughter tamped down.

Eames shouldn’t have told anyone, really, but he couldn’t help it.

“Was the fucker big? Was it _huge_? Was it _enormous_?”

Arthur isn’t looking at Yusuf, he’s concentrating on his spreadsheet, but Eames can see his face. Can see how the corner of his mouth is tugged up. Can see how hard he’s struggling to keep his own laughter tamped down. Finally he gives up and turns to Yusuf.

“The fucker was _gigantic_ ,” he says, overcome with giggles. Eames laughs till his stomach hurts.


	11. Run

After Mal, after everything went to shit, when he decided to go on the run — “Dom needs me, Eames” — Arthur always knew where Eames was, but he never came. He never came to him. Dom came to cajole him into the Fischer job, thinking he was luring Eames with the possibility of performing inception. 

“You still working with that stick in the mud?” Dom Cobb was so easy to fool. As if inception was the lure, when Arthur was with Cobb. 

Eames didn't need to be lured, he would have run to Arthur.

But Cobb didn't need to know that.


	12. Shattered

“I’m shattered, love.” Dave’s in the hall taking off his work boots, his clothes and hair dusty.

Bob knows what to do about that. He steers Dave up the stairs and into the bathroom, strips off his things, turns on the shower and gently pushes him in. Takes off his own things and steps in after. 

Dave hums with pleasure as Bob washes the dust away, bending his neck so Bob can reach. 

Later, he slouches on the sofa as Bob makes dinner, drinking a beer, talking about his tiring day.

Bob can hardly believe this is his life now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shattered (British informal): very tired.


	13. Teeming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney muses

His thoughts sometimes feel like rats running around in his head. Like the termites you see in Africa when you kick open one of their mounds. Rushing, teeming: no pattern, no coherence.

Of course, he _can_ think clearly. He can _seem_ to control his thoughts. No one can ever know how they rush without form when he lets his guard slip. No one can ever know how much _they_ break in.

But Godfrey is a still point.

After he was so thoughtlessly cruel, he thought he had lost him. How great was his relief when he realised he had not.


	14. Fierce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney muses, again

He had seemed so soft, so weak. Weeping like a woman, giving in to James’ demands; in his boudoir, lace-draped, soft-lit.

But it had not taken long to realise that the weakness was an illusion. That inside Godfrey there was a hard core of fierce determination and an unbreakable will. How else had he survived for so long in that nest of filth presided over by Strange?

And he had not been afraid of James, had argued, had reasoned with him. It was not his fault James would not — could not — listen and deviate from his own fiercely held plan.


	15. Mysterious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Godfrey muses ...

There is so much he doesn’t know about James. Things he must wait to discover, to be allowed to understand.

The heavy black markings? Did he ask for them, or were they forced upon him as a sign of dominion? The brands? If he sought those out, why would he have chosen such pain? For what was he trying to atone? He knows James has the many deaths on that ship on his conscience. He also knows he has killed without compunction.

He is mysterious, perhaps even to himself.

But Godfrey knows what it feels like to be a mystery.


	16. Fat

Arthur loves Eames’ body. Of course he does. He loves the muscles bunched in his shoulders, his strong thighs, his beautiful hands, his surprisingly elegant feet.

He loves the sight of Eames gleaming with sweat after a workout. He loves the musky male smell of him.

He loves watching Eames walk naked from bed to bathroom.

He loves the little roll of fat on Eames’ belly when they’ve had downtime. The little roll that tells him Eames is entirely comfortable in his skin, and with Arthur. He loves that most of all, because really, it’s not Eames’ body he loves.


	17. Graceful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur muses ...

Not everyone would think “graceful” when they looked at Eames — at the muscled shoulders that make his shirts pull slightly, the thighs he hides in loosely cut pants.

Some have seen what Eames can do with his hands, delicately sketching an idea in the air as it forms in his mind.

Fewer have learnt what Eames can do with his hands on a lover’s body, stroking firmly, walking his fingers lightly across sensitive skin, the delicate way he pinches a nipple.

Arthur knows how graceful Eames is in bed, how he uses every part of his body to give pleasure.


	18. Filthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Godfrey muses ...

He likes to be clean, and that was one of the hardest things on the ship: not being clean. So now, he calls for hot water and washes often, and sends his small clothes to be laundered.

James seems not to care about such things. Perhaps it was his time in Africa, or on board other ships.

James will come to him, when he has bathed and James has not.

The filthy male scent of him as he undresses him, his coat, his waistcoat, his shirt, his drawers… should not be arousing. And yet he cannot deny that it is.


	19. Cloud

“What was the worst dream you’ve ever shared?” 

Eames frowns as he considers.

“It was a job we never should have taken. Everyone agreed afterwards: Some minds shouldn’t be invaded.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

“The mark was an elderly woman. Her mind was going and her children wanted to … recover her memory of a long-lost brother, see if they could reconcile them. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. We built a sunny garden, a calm, happy place, but when we took her down, there was nothing but storm clouds. Dark and turbulent.” He shudders at the memory.


	20. Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney's ghosts. His mind can be a confusing place.

Always drifting, sinking slowly, slowly. And she is always there, haunting him, dragging him down, down, down — deep and deeper. 

Always hidden in the depths of his imaginings. Not known, not properly known. Hidden deep, deep, deep and deeper.

Always calling, demanding that he follow, deep and deeper, deeper, deeper still. 

So hard to resist, always at the edge of his vision, beckoning, luring him, deep and deeper, deeper still. 

Half remembered. Or has he created her from not-memories? Deeply hidden, never looked at directly, glimpsed, guessed at, hidden deep.

How far must he fall? How deep must he go? 


	21. Furious

Eames rarely sees the sharp edge of Arthur’s temper, and never turned towards him. Irritation, yes, over minor matters, but not anger.

Arthur saves his anger for those who truly deserve it -- the criminally incompetent. An incompetent criminal can kill, and they might be thieves who shoot without compunction in dreams, but they’d all rather not become actual killers.

Eames has seen Arthur react with cold fury to someone who put his own life in danger. It was terrible to behold. 

He’s only ever seen Arthur react with hot rage once. He was _furious_ when Eames’ life was in danger.


	22. Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is it? It could be any one of them.

Sometimes what you want is just to touch and touch and touch, endlessly.

Not touch with a goal, not to get him off, just to touch, and be touched.

Trail your fingers lightly over his skin, feeling the smooth and the rough, the bumps and the dips, the knobs of his bones, the way he shivers and trembles. Feeling the heat of him. The way his hair comes to a point at his neck, the way it sifts through your fingers, or catches on them.

Trail your mouth down his body, kissing, and licking, and biting. Just touching and tasting.


	23. Juicy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of sweetness for Bob and Dave.

There is a bowl of dark plums gleaming on the counter, and Bob eats one when he gets home, the skin splitting sharply under his teeth, the juice — sour-sweet and just a bit bitter — flooding his mouth, leaving a clean taste behind. 

He’s eating another when the front door opens. “Hello,” Dave calls, “You home, love?”

Bob’s mouth is full of red plum flesh, so he can’t answer. He walks through to the hall, swallowing the juice so he can kiss Dave.

“Mmm, plums,” says Dave, licking into his mouth.

“Yeah. Hello,” says Bob, kissing him again with sticky lips.


	24. Blind

When he wakes from the chaos of the dream, Arthur cannot see anything. He knows he’s awake — he can feel the carpet they lay down on, can smell a faint trace of smoke from the mark’s cigarette, can feel his own bones and skin when he rubs his hands down his face. But he can’t see a thing. His eyes are open, but there is only black, thick and heavy, pressing on his brain. 

Panic starts to rise.

Then, warm and reassuring, comes a voice. “Don’t worry darling. It goes away. Crap batch of chemicals. It goes away. I’m here.”


	25. Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney

He had always liked being at sea. Everything was simpler there. Not easy, but clear -- what needed to be done was plain. Adjust a sheet, reef a sail, plot a course, take a position. Manoeuvring a ship even through a storm was easier than manoeuvring through the murky waters of political advantage.

Commanding men at sea was easier than trying to get them to do your bidding on land.

He had always liked being at sea, until he was put on that filthy ship and made to do their evil bidding.

This ship of fools would be a better place.


	26. Squeak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the spidery hotel ...

The stay in this shitty hotel, with spiders in the shower and a hideous orange and brown patterned bedspread — “Take that thing _away_ , Eames, right this minute please” — is longer than they had expected. 

Eames is almost used to it by now: the way the tap drips a rust stain into the basin, the way the door sticks on the ugly carpet. 

The way the bed squeaks.

Arthur winces at every squeak, shy about being overheard. Until he’s so far gone his own panting breaths drown out the sound, until his flush of embarrassment is eclipsed by a hotter fever.


	27. Climb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney

The way he concentrates as he climbs the rigging, forcing himself upwards even though he hates it, is like his determination in many things. 

The way he forced himself to make the declaration about the Company’s evil although he was terrified. The way he made himself take off the dress and become a sailor.

The way he refused to back away from my roughness, waited until I let him in. 

I bend and offer my hand as he nears the top of the climb. His face clears as he grasps it, pulls himself the final step and stands beside me.


	28. Fall

It’s an effective way to get out of a dream, but Arthur hates it. Can’t stand approaching the edge, or the moment before you take the last step off.

“Do it backwards,” he’s been advised, and yes, that means you don’t have to see the ground rushing towards you, but not knowing when you’ll hit is worse, somehow.

But sometimes there’s no alternative.

A mob of angry projections are closing in when Eames steps up beside him on the roof and holds out his hand. “I’ve got you, darling.” Eames holds him tight. The fall isn’t so bad after all.


	29. United

Eames has misgivings about the job. 

“What don’t you like?” asks Arthur.

“It feels wrong. I can’t really explain why.”

“Too dangerous?”

“Not for us.”

“What, then?”

“They want me to forge a child. The client won’t like what we find. She shouldn’t be asking that question.”

“I thought it was pretty harmless, but I’ll tell them we can’t do it.”

So Arthur emails the extractor, and the client. The extractor is furious. “I need that payday, Arthur!”

But Arthur doesn’t budge.

“Eames doesn’t like it, and we’re a team.”

“A united front, darling,” says Eames, later.

“Yes,” says Arthur.


	30. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Delaney ...

As soon as he saw Godfrey across the room in the Company’s offices, he knew he would find him. The spark of recognition flew both ways, an almost audible crackle in the air, stopping both of their breaths. He lost his train of thought under that dark gaze.

And when he is found, the surprise of where he is, what he is, gives him pause.

But their first words tell him that not everything is changed, that under the wig, Godfrey is the same as the boy he knew at school.

Nervous, but steadfast. Trembling but not at all pitiful.


	31. Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eames, of course.

Eames’ forging always surprises people the first time they see it. How does he transform himself -- his bulk, his maleness, his vigour -- into an older man, a delicate young woman, a child?

“That’s creepy,” they sometimes say. “Isn’t it weird? Arthur, isn’t it weird for you?”

Arthur too was unsettled the first few times he saw it happen. But that was before. Before Eames showed himself to Arthur in every possible way.

Now, he can always see the essential Eames behind the mask of whoever he puts on.

“You see _me_ ,” says Eames.

“Of course,” says Arthur. “You let me.”


End file.
